Polykleitos (or Polyklitos,
Polycleitus, Polyclitus; GreekΠολύκλειτος); called the Elder[1], was a
Greeksculptor in bronze of the
fifth and the early fourth century BC. Next to Phidias, Myron and Kresilas, he is considered the most important
sculptor of Classical antiquity: the
fourth-century catalogue attributed to Xenocrates (the "Xenocratic catalogue"),
which was Pliny's guide in matters of art, ranked him between
Phidias and Myron[2].

He was of the school of Argos, a contemporary of Phidias (possibly also taught by Ageladas) and, in the opinion
of the Greeks, his equal. His figure of an Amazon for Ephesus was regarded as superior to those by
Phidias and Kresilas at
the same time; and his colossal gold and ivory
statue of Hera which stood in her
temple – the Heraion of Argos – was compared
with the Zeus by Phidias. He also
sculpted a famous bronze male
nude known as the Doryphoros ("Spear-carrier"), which
survives in the form of numerous Roman marble copies. Further sculptures
attributed to Polykleitos are the Discophoros ("Discus-bearer"), Diadumenos ("Diadem-wearer") and a Hermes at one time placed,
according to Pliny, in Lysimachia (Thrace). Polykleitos'
Astragalizontes ("Boys Playing at Knuckle-bones") was
claimed by the Emperor Titus and
set in a place of honour in his atrium[3].

Polykleitos, along with Phidias, created the Classical Greek
style. Although none of his original works survive, literary
sources identifying Roman marble copies of his work allow
reconstructions to be made. An essential element of his and the
Classical Greek style is the use of a relaxed pose with the shifted
balance of weight known today as contrapposto yielding a naturalness that
was a source of his fame.

Polykleitos consciously created a new approach to sculpture; he
wrote a treatise (Kanon) and designed a male nude
(also known as Kanon) exemplifying his aesthetic theories of the
mathematical bases of artistic perfection, which motivated Kenneth Clark to
place him among "the great puritans of art":[4] His
Kanon "got its name because it had a precise
commensurability (symmetria) of all the parts to one
another"[5] "His
general aim was clarity, balance, and completeness; his sole medium
of communication the naked body of an athlete, standing poised
between movement and repose" Kenneth Clark observed.[6] Though
the Kanon may be represented by his Doryphoros,
the bronze has not survived, but references to it in other ancient
books imply that its main principle was expressed by the Greek
words symmetria, the Hippocratic principle of isonomia
("equilibrium"), and rhythmos. "Perfection, he said, comes
about little by little (para mikron) through many
numbers"[7]. By
this Polykleitos meant that a statue should be composed of clearly
definable parts, all related to one another through a system of
ideal mathematical proportions and balance, no doubt expressed in
terms of the ratios established by Pythagoras for the perfect intervals of
the musical
scale: 1:2 (octave), 2:3
(harmonic
fifth), and 3:4 (harmonic fourth). The refined detail of
Polykleitos' models for casting executed in clay is revealed in a
famous remark repeated in Plutarch's Moralia, that "the work is
hardest when the clay is under the fingernail"[8].

Polykleitos and Phidias were of the first generation of Greek
sculptors to have a schools of
followers. Polykleitos' school lasted for at least three
generations, but it seems to have been most active in the late 300s
and early 200s BC. The Roman writers Pliny and Pausanias noted the names of
about twenty sculptors in Polykleitos' school, defined by their
adherence to his principles of balance and definition. Skopas and Lysippus
are the best-known successors of Polykleitos.

His son, Polykleitos the Younger, worked
in the fourth century BC. Although he was also a sculptor of
athletes, his greatest fame was won as an architect. He designed
the great theater at Epidaurus.

^
Clark, The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form, 1956:63;"...they
derive the principles of their art, as if from a law of some kind,
and he alone of men is deemed to have rendered art itself in a work
of art." Pliny's Natural
History, 34.55-6.